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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

I really love the Linux Mint 12 LXDE edition. But, because of some reasons, LXDE ran out of favor and the Mint developers preferred KDE, Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE for the future releases. So, versions 13 (Maya) and 14 (Nadia) never saw an LXDE release. That is where I decided to do an experiment - install the Linux Mint 12 LXDE version and upgrade it to Mint 14. I could have also installed an LXDE desktop to a Nadia installation. But, I choose the difficult path just to experiment if, by replacing the old ppa's with the updated ones in Package Source list, one can actually upgrade a system with no harms done.

For my forward approach, i.e. upgrade from Lisa to Nadia, I booted up a 32-bit Linux Mint 12 LXDE installation. It has primarily the Oneiric and Mint's own Lisa packages. What I did is to add the Quantal and Nadia repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list and replace the old Lisa list.deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ nadia main upstream import backport romeodeb-src http://packages.linuxmint.com/ nadia main upstream import backport romeodeb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal main restricted universe multiversedeb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates main restricted universe multiversedeb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-security main restricted universe multiversedeb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ quantal partnerdeb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ quantal free non-free# deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu quantal-getdeb apps# deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu quantal-getdeb gamesBasically what I did here is too add the archives and packages from Ubuntu 12.10 and Mint 14 Nadia. To do it just go to the terminal and typesudo leafpad /etc/apt/sources.listthen type password and then do a repo update bysudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgradeIt took some time to do so. All the upgraded Nadia system files were now be added and obsolete Lisa files were be moved out. It will run for sometime. I allowed it to run. However, post completion, I noted that some dependencies were not met and quite a few lib files not installed. Hence, again I ran a forced upgradesudo apt-get -f upgradeThis time it worked and all essential files were upgraded to Nadia. Then I upgraded the distro usingsudo apt-get dist-upgradeAgain, it took about an hour in my system to replace the old Lisa kernel (3.0.0) with the new Nadia (Linux kernel 3.5.0-21) along with a host of other library files. Major upgrades which happened in course were:

To check if things are working, I installed LibreOffice. By default LibreOffice 3.6 from Quantal/Nadia library got installed. I restarted with the apprehension that something would break and my entire 5 hours of effort would be ruined. But, to my luck, it started with LXDE plus OpenBox and with the updated Linux kernel 3.5.Two broken packages were reported when I used the Software update GUI. I allowed it to install and repair broken packages with the detailed display open. It asked for permissions in certain cases to replace the broken packages with the latest ones from Nadia and Quantal repositories. It ran for about 30 minutes but couldn't resolve the couple of packages. However, I checked all my programs ran perfect. Software manager icon on the main menu was broken but System Tools -> Software Manage and Synaptic Package Manager were working great. Because it was unable to upgrade everything, the software update icon in the right hand side of the panel wouldn't show a tick (as it normally shows) but all applications worked right out of the box. Even I could install LibreOffice 3.6 and Skype 4 without any fuss.

One issue I faced is that even after restart, Linux kernel 3.0.0 was being used as default. So, I updated grub bysudo update-gruband it worked! Next reboot took me straight to Linux kernel 3.5.In nutshell, all the existing packages got upgraded to the Nadia packages. LXDE is still there as the only desktop environment (along with the minimal Openbox, of course) and I got a brand new updated Linux Mint 14 Nadia LXDE from Linux Mint 12 Lisa LXDE within a matter of few hours! I checked for resource usage as well. Both Linux Mint 12 and 14 had the same 120 MB RAM and 0-1% CPU usage with only task manager running. Net result for me was a successful upgrade from Linux Mint Lisa LXDE to Linux Mint Nadia LXDE.

Wish Mint hadn't discontinued the LXDE version :(. LM 12 LXDE was really good for me - adding LM 14 ppa's worked for me, it is running well without any instability. Please let me know if it worked for you. Thanks.

Hello,I finally had the time to try your trick to get mint 14 lxde from mint 12. I am sorry to report that so far, I unfortunately failed, which is very sad. I can go as far so to complete this step "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade". And then I restart and then the the ubuntu splash screen is displaying. When I enter the UI, I cannot use the mousepad nor the wireless internet card. I am using an Acer Aspire one netbook (a150, one of the first models). I am right now reinstalling Mint 12. Have any clues?Thanks, and don't worry about my failure, I knew the risks before my attempts!

I've been using this guys Maya LXDE spin for the past several weeks with very few problems on a desktop. His ppa hasn't broke anything either on a netbook running Lubuntu either. Love your very through helpful reviews by the way.. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ulmlxde/